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Background: Indoor residual spraying (IRS) of insecticides is a key method to reduce vector transmission of Trypanosoma cruzi, causing Chagas disease in a large part of South America. However, the successes of IRS in the Gran Chaco region straddling Bolivia, Argentina, and Paraguay, have not equalled those in other Southern Cone countries. Aims: This study evaluated routine IRS practices and insecticide quality control in a typical endemic community in the Bolivian Chaco. Methods: Alpha-cypermethrin active ingredient (a.i.) captured onto filter papers fitted to sprayed wall surfaces, and in prepared spray tank solutions, were measured using an adapted Insecticide Quantification Kit (IQK™) validated against HPLC quantification methods. The data were analysed by mixed-effects negative binomial regression models to examine the delivered insecticide a.i. concentrations on filter papers in relation to the sprayed wall heights, spray coverage rates (surface area / spray time [m2/min]), and observed/expected spray rate ratios. Variations between health workers and householders' compliance to empty houses for IRS delivery were also evaluated. Sedimentation rates of alpha-cypermethrin a.i. post-mixing of prepared spray tanks were quantified in the laboratory. Results: Substantial variations were observed in the alpha-cypermethrin a.i. concentrations delivered; only 10.4% (50/480) of filter papers and 8.8% (5/57) of houses received the target concentration of 50 mg ± 20% a.i./m2. The delivered concentrations were not related to those in the matched spray tank solutions. The sedimentation of alpha-cypermethrin a.i. in the surface solution of prepared spray tanks was rapid post-mixing, resulting in a linear 3.3% loss of a.i. content per minute and 49% loss after 15 min. Only 7.5% (6/80) of houses were sprayed at the WHO recommended rate of 19 m2/min (± 10%), whereas 77.5% (62/80) were sprayed at a lower than expected rate. The median a.i. concentration delivered to houses was not significantly associated with the observed spray coverage rate. Householder compliance did not significantly influence either the spray coverage rates or the median alpha-cypermethrin a.i. concentrations delivered to houses. Conclusions: Suboptimal delivery of IRS is partially attributable to the insecticide physical characteristics and the need for revision of insecticide delivery methods, which includes training of IRS teams and community education to encourage compliance. The IQK™ is a necessary field-friendly tool to improve IRS quality and to facilitate health worker training and decision-making by Chagas disease vector control managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Background Chagas disease represents a major public health concern in several Latin American countries, including Bolivia. Methods We present a longitudinal serosurvey for Trypanosoma cruzi antibodies among a cohort of 120 school-age children from rural communities in the Bolivian Chaco at three time points between 2017 and 2019. Serum samples extracted from dry blood spots collected on filter paper were tested for T. cruzi antibodies by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and rapid diagnostic test. Results T. cruzi antibodies were detected in 7/120 (5.8%), 8/120 (6.7%) and 11/120 (9.2%) samples in 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively. An average incidence of 1.76 per 100 person-years was observed. Conclusions Our findings support the persistence of vector-borne T. cruzi transmission in this area, highlighting the need for strengthening multidisciplinary efforts against Chagas disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Boletín Latinoamericano y del Caribe de Plantas Medicinales y Aromáticas is the property of Universidad de Santiago de Chile and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

An enzyme-linked immunoelectrotransfer blot (EITB) assay was used to study the prevalence of cysticercosis in rural Bolivia. Dried blood spots on filter paper from fingersticks were used as assay samples. Before the serosurvey, experiments were performed to show that samples eluted from dried whole blood on filter paper exhibited no decrease in sensitivity when compared with the more traditional serum samples used in the EITB. Fingerstick blood dried on filter paper is a convenient, economical way of transporting and storing field samples for epidemiologic surveys of cysticercosis in developing countries. This report shows the utility of this sample collection method in underdeveloped countries where refrigeration is not possible and where venipuncture is a problem. Blood was obtained from randomly selected residents in three rural regions of Bolivia: Chuquisaca (n = 1,859), Cochabamba (n = 1,516), and Tarija (n = 1,010). The estimated seroprevalence on 10% of the sample collected for the three regions were 9%, 4.5%, and 2%, respectively.

What happens when the architectures of extraction, once intimately constituted by capitalist and racial forms of exclusion, begin to rot? Focusing on a Bolivian tin mine, this paper examines the social effects of deteriorating "architectures of extraction," a category that includes both aboveground infrastructures and belowground networks of tunnels and scaffolding. First, I argue that when Llallagua's extractive architecture was built, it helped shore up a connection between tin mining, working-class identity, and revolutionary nationalism – which in turn became bound up with mestizaje, an ideology of racial and cultural whitening. Second, I argue that the ruination of this extractive architecture has had ambivalent implications for the racial politics of contemporary small-scale mining operations that continue to operate inside the mountain. On the one hand, the rotting structures reinforce regional racial hierarchies in a variety of ways, but on the other hand, the slow degradation of the physical structures has made the corresponding social structures more porous, if not fully permeable, to members of regional Indigenous ayllus. While access to the financial benefits of mining is far from unambiguously liberatory, this paper nevertheless suggests that the political possibilities contained within the ruins of extractive architectures are not uniformly adverse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With its proclamation of universal suffrage in 1952, Bolivia fits into Samuel Huntington's "second short wave of democratization" (1943–1963). In 1952, all women and men gained the right to vote, marking a significant step towards democratization by including previously excluded groups. Literate women had already obtained municipal voting rights in 1945 under a populist government aiming for broader political participation. However, women first voted in 1947, after the oligarchy overthrew this government in 1946 and sought to regain power by repressing the opposition parties and previously marginalized sectors. Unexpectedly, it supported women's suffrage for national elections by the late 1940s. What prompted various political parties to support women's suffrage in the late 1940s? This paper explores how women in Bolivia gained the right to vote and what role the feminist movement and power struggles played in obtaining women's suffrage. Beginning in the 1920s with a study of the emergence of the feminist movement and its evolution during the decades of the 1930s (the Chaco War) and 1940s, the paper culminates with an assessment of feminism's impact on public opinion as well as the importance of the growing politicization of women in the 1940s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stand-alone price analysis of illicit opium and coca does not explain why smallholders turn to illicit crops for coping and survival. Under conditions of precarity, illicit crop markets can stimulate productivity. They generate returns that can tame crises and relieve pressures. To smallholders facing marginalisation, violence, and climate change – growing opium and coca, despite their illegality, can reduce or spread risks and provide more predictability. Thus, rather than fix on the 'invisible hand' of price theory, the focus should be on the 'visible hand' of political entrepreneurship, interdependent relationships, and the metrics of precarity. To do this, this paper retrospectively compares illicit crop prices before and after certain historical moments in Bolivia, Myanmar, Colombia, and Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Raised-field agricultural systems have received attention from scholars involved in the analysis of prehistoric agricultural intensification in the New World. This paper discusses the function of raised fields associated with the Tiwanaku society (500–1100 CE) located on the southern rim of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. The overnight internal heat storage capacity of Tiwanaku raised-field berms located at the high-altitude (~3810 masl) Bolivian altiplano is analyzed through ANSYS (version 4.2B) finite difference methods to provide an understanding of ancient agricultural engineers' knowledge regarding how to protect crops from nightly subzero freezing temperatures and water saturation. The present analysis concludes that enhanced berm heat storage capacity derived from solar radiation into multi-layered moist berm agricultural soils, together with radiative heating of berm-surrounding swale water (swale water depth determined from excavation into the groundwater aquifer), was an essential Tiwanaku design element of raised-field agriculture to protect crops from freezing damage during both wet and dry seasons. This paper reports the ANSYS temperature distribution results derived from a raised-field berm swale computer model of ancient excavated raised fields in the form of a 24 h heat input and cooling cycle, which indicates the presence of an internal berm heat storage effect designed to protect crops from freezing damage. The calculations performed use specific hydrological and climatological conditions characteristic of the littoral and near-shore environment of Lake Titicaca. The use of the ANSYS finite element code to investigate the source of internal berm heat storage protecting crops from freezing temperatures, compared to the field test results from experimental use of reconstructed ancient, raised fields, provides an understanding of the technologies developed by Tiwanaku agricultural engineers to increase raised-field agricultural production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many countries, the advancement of hydropower resources has been hindered by economic factors and insufficient data on topography, streamflow, environmental sensitivity, power grid, and, most importantly, the location of potential hydropower sites. This challenge is particularly pronounced in certain African and Latin American river systems. Developing web-based maps of hydropower resources based on geographic information systems and advanced mapping technologies can facilitate the initial assessment of hydropower sites. This is especially relevant for developing sites in remote areas and data-scarce regions. The available geospatial datasets, remote sensing technologies, and advanced GIS modelling techniques can be used to identify potential hydropower sites and assess their preliminary characteristics. This paper reviews web-based hydropower atlases in African and Latin American countries. Their main features are represented and compared with the recently launched HYPOSO map viewer covering two African countries (Cameroon and Uganda) and three Latin American countries (Bolivia, Colombia, and Ecuador). This hydropower atlas consists of 20 spatial layers. Its particular focus is to present a geospatial dataset of new hydropower sites with concise information for potential investors. These so-called virtual hydropower atlases can be only one type of discovery at the early project stage, automatically identifying sites worthy of further investigation. A formal validation of the web-based atlases, including the HYPOSO hydropower atlas, is briefly considered. Creating open-access hydropower map viewers is anticipated to significantly enhance the hydropower development database in these nations, offering valuable insights for small and medium-scale projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the case of the 2011 march against a highway project through the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS) in Bolivia, alongside a discussion of Max Weber's conceptions of rationality, this paper situates that demonstration in the interface between the Bolivian State's modern formal rationality with the substantive rationality proposed as 'Vivir Bien'; an umbrella term for a conglomeration of indigenous proposals for a sustainable relationship between humans and nature that goes beyond neoliberalism, colonialism, and their cultural and environmental consequences. As with any modern institution, the Bolivian State performs with modern means-ends calculations, thus subduing the transformative potential of 'Vivir Bien' as a distinct rationalism, with its means-ends framework, knowledge, and patterns of action. In a Weberian critique of Modernity, two issues will be raised. First is the need to recognize the modern state as the institutional embodiment of modern formalinstrumental rationality bound to Modernity's means-ends framework. Second, an evaluation of the possibility of incorporating other rationalisms into the modern state, allowing other means-ends valuations for state policymaking involving other patterns of action and sociality. Based on these considerations, this paper recognizes modern rationalism in contrast to other rationalisms, worldviews, and practices in a critical search for alter native approaches and proposals for attending to local and global problems threatening sustainable human existence, from environmental devaluation to social inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bolivia's first Indigenous president, Evo Morales (2006–2019) of the Movement toward Socialism (MAS) party, made Indigenous rights the cornerstone of his administration. In his first official act, Morales disbanded the Ministry of Indigenous and First Peoples Affairs under the logic that Indigenous peoples' demands are to be incorporated into all facets of government, rather than addressed separately. In light of this dynamic, the paper takes up the questions: Does Indigenous mainstreaming work to advance the representation of Indigenous peoples' interests? And, what are the conditions under which mechanisms of Indigenous representation emerge, succeed, or fail? The paper maps out the institutional architecture that has emerged in Bolivia to advance Indigenous peoples' descriptive and substantive representation. The study finds that for Indigenous mainstreaming to be effective, it must be accompanied by multiple mechanisms of interest representation, such as reserved seats, executive appointments, and the direct election of Indigenous representatives, to account for the diversity of Indigenous peoples' representational needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we compare practices of formulating responses to requests for confirmation oriented toward confirmation but doing less or more than that in German and Yurakaré (isolate, Bolivia). The German particle joa is identified as a versatile resource for navigating the functional spectrum of such responses, being deployed for less than confirming in terms of epistemic or propositional downgrading, and for more than confirming in terms of addressing terms of questions or a confirmable's valence. When exercising these specific tasks, speakers of Yurakaré, in contrast, rely mostly on repetitional strategies, while a highly specialised particle constitutes an 'escape strategy' when a repeat would convey unwanted implications. We propose that doing less and more than confirming is contingent on a more fundamental distinction: a preference for particles (German) vs. repeats (Yurakaré) in the realm of plain confirmation, which carries over to responses doing less and more than confirming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Catalana de Dret Ambiental is the property of Universitat Rovira I Virgili and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Historically, Latin America has been a fertile ground for the emergence of populism. Scholars have identified several waves of populist governments flourishing in the region during the last century. The third wave began in the 2000s when leftist leaders came to power in some Latin American countries, a phenomenon called "the Pink Tide". Two of the most notable examples of populist governments in this wave were Evo Morales in Bolivia (2006-2019) and Rafael Correa in Ecuador (2007-2017). Both leaders promoted an anti-elitist rhetoric highlighting a confrontational divide between domestic elites (as perpetrators of injustices) and the people (as victims). This rhetoric also involved external actors. The relationship with the great powers was permeated by the populist discourse based on the logic of "them vs. us". In this context, the paper analyses the rhetoric of Evo Morales and Rafael Correa concerning the role of the European Union in their countries. Primary sources (speeches, press releases and official documents) are examined to understand the image built around the EU and to grasp how populist rhetoric portrayed the EU's role in areas such as trade and migration. The result is a complex assessment of the ideas about the EU disseminated by these leaders, examining how Morales's and Correa's rhetoric evolved over the years and identifying similarities and differences between their approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Latin America — the region with the biggest tropical forest on the planet and the largest potential for agricultural expansion — food security and food sovereignty are two competing approaches to food policies. Drawing on decolonial approaches to political geography, this paper provides a comparative analysis of food policies in the four countries (Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia) that make up the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), a supranational organisation that has enacted a regional food policy aimed at reconciling neoliberal and social orientations of its country-members. The paper contributes to the literature that highlights the multi-scalar nature of food security and food sovereignty by exploring the contentious building of food institutions from the grassroots to national and supranational scales in the Andean region. It also contributes to the critiques that highlight the limits to decolonization by explaining how – apart from hydrocarbon and mining dependence – food policies also express the permanence of coloniality in plurinational states. The paper argues that Andean supranational policies are apparent efforts to balance and harmonize the different interests at stake when actually reinforce a neocolonial sovereign state power that deepens the scalar tensions by intensifying the extractive transnational agriculture over pro-indigenous agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista del Museo de Antropología is the property of Museo de Antropologia - IDACOR and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: Many low- and middle-income countries cannot measure maternal mortality to monitor progress against global and country-specific targets. While the ultimate goal for these countries is to have complete civil registrations systems, other interim strategies are needed to provide timely estimates of maternal mortality. Objective: The objective is to inform on potential options for measuring maternal mortality. Methods: This paper uses a case study approach to compare methodologies and estimates of pregnancy-related mortality ratio (PRMR)/maternal mortality ratio (MMR) obtained from four different data sources from similar time periods in Bangladesh, Mozambique, and Bolivia—national population census; post-census mortality survey; household sample survey; and sample vital registration system (SVRS). Results: For Bangladesh, PRMR from the 2011 census falls closely in line with the 2010 household survey and SVRS estimates, while SVRS' MMR estimates are closer to the PRMR estimates obtained from the household survey. Mozambique's PRMR from household survey method is comparable and shows an upward trend between 1994 and 2011, whereas the post-census mortality survey estimated a higher MMR for 2007. Bolivia's DHS and post-census mortality survey also estimated comparable MMR during 1998–2003. Conclusions: Overall all these data sources presented in this paper have provided valuable information on maternal mortality in Bangladesh, Mozambique, and Bolivia. It also outlines recommendations to estimate maternal mortality based on the advantages and disadvantages of several approaches. Contribution: Recommendations in this paper can help health administrators and policy planners in prioritizing investment for collecting reliable and contemporaneous estimates of maternal mortality while progressing toward a complete civil registration system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous organizations in the Andean countries of Ecuador and Bolivia originated novel proposals to pluralize sovereign arrangements through plurinational statehood. Reflecting diverse Indigenous groups' relations with postcolonial states, these proposals created a unique basis for re-negotiating (sovereign) resource governance. Despite the constitutional endorsement of the plurinational state model however, the latest empirical evidence confirms growing state control over subsoil resources that excises Indigenous peoples from decision-making over resources. In this paper, we trace the emergence of novel agendas for sovereignty-multiplicity, showing how Indigenous agendas had anticipated the need to go beyond their rights over subsoil resources and autonomous territories. These agendas implied re-negotiating national sovereignty in light of the countries' internal ethno-political and epistemic heterogeneity. Under nominally plurinational states however, resource governance outcomes perpetuate and normalise longstanding epistemic and power differentials between rights-bearing political subjects and Indigenous subjects. We highlight the colonial-modern bases of current sovereignty arrangements, identifying the presumptions and legal parameters that shape the dynamics between states, people and Indigenous people. Situating resource governance in relation to the concept of modernity/coloniality, we propose to (re)think sovereignty arrangements in the colonial present in light of internal heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political sociologists have spent more time investigating how charismatic leaders gain support than how they lose it. Which factors drive voters to abandon a charismatic leader? Is defection associated with social and political identity, economic circumstances, democratic commitments, interactions between these, or other factors? In this paper, I use the case of Juan "Evo" Morales and Bolivia to explore how support for a charismatic leader erodes. A mixed-methods approach enables a descriptive portrait of loyalists and defectors from nationally representative survey data, along with an analysis of how voters describe their political allegiances from in-depth interviews across two summers of fieldwork in La Paz. The study finds that in the case of Evo and Bolivia, loyalty to and defection from a charismatic leader are affected by education, ethnic identity, and sex. Using these findings, the paper shows how responses to charismatic counter-roles are shaped by voter positionality. Differences in voters' interpretation of a given situation depend partly on identity. Support for a charismatic leader is not necessarily support for charisma, and voters defect for various reasons, including some cited by other voters as grounds for their persistent loyalty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares across six nations the mental health systems available to prisoners with the highest acuity of psychosis and risk combined with the lowest level of insight into the need for treatment. Variations were observed within and between nations. Findings highlight the likely impact of factors such as mental health legislation and the prison mental health workforce on a nation's ability to deliver timely and effective treatment close to home for prisoners who lack capacity to consent to treatment for their severe mental illness. The potential benefits of addressing the resulting inequalities are noted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes livelihood diversification and social differentiation in the Bolivian highlands. It argues that peasants' increased dependence on mining is undermining the material basis of their farming practices and leading to social differentiation which threaten their autonomy, control over their resource base and, ultimately, farming futures. While pluriactivity is necessary to sustain life on the farm, it also actively depletes it. The multiple identities and complex class positions of these smallholders have hindered forms of organized resistance. Mining is part of agrarian life and these dynamics are important to understand rural livelihoods and agrarian change in the contemporary context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microfinance has been termed as the pioneer of Gender Equality and women empowerment by providing financial services and enabling entrepreneurial mindset in women. One of the key differences between the developing and the developed world has been the participation of females in the workforce as well as the household decision-making process. To achieve these twin objectives, the services of Microfinance have emerged as a significant tool. After its origin in comparatively poor countries such as Bolivia and Bangladesh, microfinance services have been used around the world; especially in the south Asian and Latin American regions. The evolution of these services has also been witnessing the economic development of the regions of its operation. The high repayment rate has resulted in the emergence of this sector as a lucrative business model. The recent pandemic, however, has jolted this sector by increasing overdue and portfolio at risk. This paper, taking into consideration the existing literature in the field of microfinance and empirical pieces of evidence obtained primarily through publically available data, field accounts and investigative reports have attempt to analyze the impact of covid-19 on repayment of microfinance service providers and also suggest methods to overcome these bottlenecks. This paper will be useful for those scholars/academicians/practitioners who want to conduct further research in the field of sustainable financial inclusion models, with a special focus on microfinance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropologists have critically examined a range of reforms from education and land to finance and health. Yet the predominant way of looking at reforms has been through a lens focused on neoliberal governance. For example, prior studies of health reforms focus on insurance, financing, and access to care. Yet, seeing reform in this way fails to attend to other types of cultural work at play when calling a policy or law a reform. In this paper, we draw on ethnographic research on health policy reforms in Israel and Bolivia to examine the concept of reform and the work it does within national movements. We argue that while the language of reform often signals change or novelty, reforms also carry forward historical continuities and reifications of the past. By delving into the past and its relationship with ongoing health reforms, we attend to how reforms can reinforce and maintain health inequities in some cases, while creating a national language for new possibilities in others. Reform, as we will discuss in this paper, is not only about political ideology, neoliberal governance, or on-the-ground policy implementation, but centrally it is about representations of aspirations, and about crafting relationships between past, present, and future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information asymmetries and limited skills are two main factors affecting job seekers' chances to access quality jobs in developing countries. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of a program combining job intermediation and wage subsidy in Bolivia, a country with one of the highest levels of informality in Latin-America. Using administrative and survey data, we find that the program substantially increases employment and formality. These effects are heterogeneous across different subsamples of interest. Our results suggest that Active Labor Market Policies might be an effective solution for improving access to quality jobs in the context of high informality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous Peoples are gaining renewed attention within both policy and academia, as examples of “resilience” and of non‐humanist, non‐modern ways of relating to nature, which might, it is hoped, provide tools to withstand the socio‐ecological crises associated with “the Anthropocene”. This paper argues that such representations obscure both their own colonial foundations and the ongoing forms of racialised dispossession and ecocide faced by Indigenous Peoples today. Instead, we conceptualise indigeneity and nature as deeply entangled categories that are co‐produced with capitalist modernity. Engaging anti‐colonial and Marxist scholarship, and drawing on our long‐term research with Indigenous movements in Bolivia and Colombia, we highlight how discursive and material assemblages of indigeneity and nature are dialectically linked to capitalist processes of dispossession and subaltern efforts to contest these. We further highlight how romanticised accounts of non‐modern nature‐cultures are unsettled by the violent world‐making of colonial capitalism and the unequal burdens placed on Indigenous territories and bodies. We use an ethnographic vignette from the Bolivian Chaco to illustrate the messy everyday ways in which real Indigenous people navigate, contest, endure, and make do amidst the contradictory processes of racialisation, dispossession, and conditional recognition that characterise their positioning within colonial capitalism. In doing so, we show how thinking from the sacrifice zones of extractive capitalism unsettles contemporary debates on decolonising nature in the Anthropocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge on seed ecology is foundational for effective seed‐based restoration including seedling production, direct seed sowing, topsoil transplant, and natural regeneration. Consequently, quantifying available knowledge and biases in seed‐based research allows practitioners to better plan and implement seed‐based restoration programs and identify research priorities. Using a systematic review comprising 45 papers, 401 species, and 2,415 case studies, we provide an overview of seed ecology research in the Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetland. We identified geographic, taxonomic, and ecological biases, as well as knowledge gaps in seed functions including production, dispersal, dormancy, germination, predation, and stress tolerance. Studies concentrated near large cities resulting in extensive unexplored sites in central Pantanal, in Paraguay, and in Bolivia. Unexpectedly, the most studied species were conducted with dry‐fruited, terrestrial forbs, or shrubs with autochoric or zoochoric dispersal syndromes. Seed banks, stress tolerance, and dispersal were the most studied topics, whereas studies on dormancy and seedling establishment remain rare. We also found disproportionate research interest across the angiosperm tree of life with many examples of underrepresented and overrepresented families. Altogether, persistent knowledge gaps in seed‐based research in the Pantanal hinder upscaling restoration programs and consequently the likelihood of achieving the targets of UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration. We propose an integrated agenda consisting of a series of orchestrated actions to overcome such barriers, close biodiversity knowledge shortfalls, and promote successful large‐scale restoration programs in the Pantanal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper explores the challenges sustainable business model (SBM) studies may face related to the information gathered during the data collection process, and elaborates on how transdisciplinary research can help to overcome these challenges. Our contribution is based on the theoretical lens of information asymmetry. Design/Methodology/Approach: This paper uses a qualitative methodology based on a transdisciplinary program that aims to support disadvantaged communities in Bolivia. The program started 3 years ago, with as objective to help vulnerable communities through transdisciplinary intervention in 6 projects, viz. 1. Social vulnerability, 2. Integrated water management, 3. Food security, 4. Indigenous rights, 5. Productive development and 6. Transversal. In addition to our experience in the program, we have conducted 57 interviews and 10 focus group discussions with vulnerable entrepreneurs and relevant stakeholders, alongside numerous on-site observations. Findings: The findings of our study illustrate that SBM research can face information asymmetry issues such as lack of access to, lack of understanding of and lack of trust in the information provided. We also show how transdisciplinary research helps to bridge such issues of trust, understanding and information availability. Based on our research, we propose 5 suggestions to scholars who wish to adopt transdisciplinary research in their study of SBMs: (i) understand the context, (ii) adapt to the context, (iii) develop relationships of trust, (iv) be flexible with your research focus and (v) systematically present to other disciplines and non-academic actors. Originality/Value: Our contribution is based on the theoretical lens of information asymmetry and argues that a transdisciplinary approach is necessary to accumulate fundamental knowledge on SBMs. Such an approach constitutes a rather sophisticated research methodology that can help us embrace the complexity of sustainable business models and find practical solutions for their scalability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the work of New York-based Bolivian artist María Luisa Pacheco, whose groundbreaking exhibition of abstract paintings in La Paz in 1962 helped validate abstraction as a legitimate form of artistic expression in Bolivia, where socially oriented figural painting still reigned supreme. The Pacheco Papers at the Archives of American Art illuminate the shifting circumstances and conflicting expectations the artist faced while exhibiting in different contexts throughout the Americas and bring to light the unique strategy—informed by her residence in both Bolivia and the United States—Pacheco developed to connect notions of the local to a style critics deemed "universal." While many midcentury Latin American artists explored means of infusing abstraction with markers of local identity, Pacheco invented an innovative visual language that evoked the Bolivian landscape through shape, color, and texture, resonating across hemispheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that assemblage theory provides an innovative way to extend critique of sustainable development as it is being remade by the 2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Drawing on recent fieldwork in Bolivia, I examine the early take‐up and implementation of the SDGs in a site of intensifying resource extraction and struggles for radical development alternatives. Based on this analysis, I argue that the SDGs as assemblage act as a form of anti‐politics by rendering neutral and apolitical the conflictive politics of extractivism. In this paper I argue that assemblage theory provides an innovative way to extend critique of sustainable development as it is being remade by the 2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Drawing on recent fieldwork in Bolivia, I examine the early take‐up and implementation of the SDGs in a site of intensifying resource extraction and struggles for radical development alternatives. I foreground the assemblage of institutions, discourses, landscapes, and infrastructures that are at once disciplined and held together to materialise and legitimise particular interpretations of sustainable development. This helps highlight what I term the "lost geographies" of the assemblage. Based on this analysis, I argue that the SDGs as assemblage act as a form of anti‐politics by rendering neutral and apolitical the conflictive politics of extractivism. As global momentum to combat climate crisis and environmental crisis grows, such assemblage work helps explain how powerful, extractivist development logics are nevertheless being maintained and reworked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the initial findings of how a Chinese school leader employed educational leadership over an early period during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis. The reported research is one case study, part of a larger study that aims to uncover how school leaders in a variety of international contexts, namely China, Bolivia, and Western Australia, managed and responded to the COVID-19 crisis. Qualitative data collection methods were employed to develop insights into the extent to which school leaders' roles and approaches to leadership changed over the course of the crisis as well as how the leaders' approaches were influenced by different contextual factors. This paper focuses on initial findings from one case within the Chinese context which indicate that the school leader's role and leadership approach was centred on supporting student learning, responding to the needs of student wellbeing, and managing parental concerns and needs, which was supported by the school's teaching staff. Additionally, the paper shows how different contextual factors, more specifically the wider educational system and the parents, influenced the leader's response to the COVID-19 at the school level. The study offers important insights into how school leaders responded to the disruptive challenge of COVID-19 and the contextual factors that influenced a leader's approach. Furthermore, the findings will contribute to current theoretical understandings about educational leadership during times of crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Scientific literacy is still being identified and recognised as one of the main goals of science education. However, this concept has multiple interpretations and its definition changes continuously depending on its social, cultural, and political contexts. In this paper, scientific literacy is conceptualised through visions I, II and III. The first one is focused on the content and scientific processes for its subsequent application; the second, with a focus on understanding the usefulness of scientific knowledge in life and society; and the third one seeks to move towards a politicised scientific education to dialogic emancipation, attending social and eco-justice dimensions. The latter is also called critical scientific literacy. The research aimed at analysing how scientific literacy and these three visions are expressed in school curricula of Bolivia and Chile. Using a qualitative approach and thematic analysis, it is established that the Bolivian curriculum presents mainly a critical scientific literacy approach and the Chilean science curriculum presents mainly a vision II of scientific literacy. Findings of contrasting both school curricula show science education as non-neutral and profoundly political field, and therefore, we can see relevant opportunities for transformation and emancipation, understanding science curriculum as a social practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncertainty remains over local‐scale responses of ecotonal Amazonian forests to middle Holocene drying due to the scarcity, and coarse spatial resolution, of lacustrine pollen records. This paper examines the palaeoecological potential of soil phytoliths, stable carbon isotopes and charcoal for capturing local‐scale ecotonal responses of different types of Bolivian Amazonian forest to middle Holocene climate change. Soil pits 1 m deep were dug at ecotones between rainforest, dry forest, Chaco woodland and savannah, and sampled at 5–10 cm resolution. Both phytolith and stable carbon isotope records indicate stability of dry forest–savannah ecotones over the last ca. 6000 years, despite middle Holocene drought, revealing the dominance of edaphic factors over climate in controlling this type of ecotone. In contrast, δ13C data reveal that rainforest–savannah ecotones were more responsive to climate change, with rainforest likely replaced by drought‐tolerant dry forest or savannah vegetation during the mid‐Holocene, consistent with regional‐scale lacustrine pollen records. However, such shifts are not apparent in most of our phytolith records due to insufficient taxonomic resolution in differentiating rainforest from dry forest. Charcoal data show that ecotonal dry forests experienced greater fire activity than rainforests and that recent high fire activity at all forest sites is unprecedented since at least the middle Holocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kañawa/Cañihua (Chenopodium pallidicaule Aellen) is the lesser-known cousin of the domesticated Andean pseudocereal quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.). In 1970, Daniel Gade hypothesized that Andean farmers may have domesticated volunteer wild kañawa plants that occupied quinoa or potato fields after observing that they could survive harsh climatic events such as drought or frost. To revisit this question of kañawa domestication, this paper provides an overview of the current botanical, genetic, and archaeological knowledge of kañawa domestication. It then provides patterns in the presence of wild and domesticated kañawa seeds from archaeological sites in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin of Bolivia, spanning the Formative and Tiwanaku periods from approximately 1500 BCE to 1100 CE. This archaeobotanical evidence supports Gade's hypothesis that kañawa was a later domesticate, not appearing until after 250 CE. Regional paleoclimatic evidence of frequent climatic fluctuations lends support to the argument that kañawa contributed to a diversified food supply, which could provide a buffer against climate risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 2016 Habitat III conference, the global urban policy framework based on the New Urban Agenda and the related Sustainable Development Goals (SDG11) has been adopted in an increasing number of countries worldwide. Through a comparative methodological approach, the paper analyses the making process of the Ecuadorian National Urban Agenda and the Bolivian National Urban Policy from the perspective of the involved international agents, to reflect upon the role of the time dimension in the localisation of global urban policy and its relationship with the policy transfer space. In doing so, the analysis sheds light on the role played by sequence and timing in influencing the outcomes of the localisation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The aim of this paper is to contribute to the scientific literature in the field of tourism in Latin America (Sucre, Bolivia was named a World Heritage Site (WHS) by UNESCO). This study analyses the relevance of the cultural motivation and emotional experience of the tourist to positively influence the image or the perceived value of the heritage site visited. The research shall also analyse other relationships, such as the positive effect of the perceived value on the loyalty of tourists and the influence of the visitor's place of origin as a moderating variable in the formation of the image and loyalty to the destination. The analysis was performed by means of structural equation models (SEMs). The data were extracted through fieldwork consisting of interviews with visitors to the city. The results of the research revealed that the perceived value of a heritage destination not only depends on the functional and tangible aspects of the attributes but also on the emotional experience and cultural interest regarding the heritage site visited. Similarly, there is evidence of a relationship between perceived value and a loyal attitude and that it is moderated by the origin of the tourist, this being a great influence in the case of the domestic tourist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the disinformation and fact-checking activity of ten Ibero-American countries during the outbreak of monkeypox in 2022. Using a mixed-methods approach based on content analysis, the debunkings published by these organizations on their websites between 7 May and 10 September 2022 are studied. The countries with the highest number of debunkings are Spain and Bolivia, with two verification agencies, Maldita and Bolivia Verifica. The outbreak's onset marked a peak in the spread of hoaxes, particularly following the declaration of the disease as a public health emergency. The identification of disinformants is challenging due to the diverse dissemination channels, although Twitter predominantly serves as the platform of choice. The preferred format for disinformation is image text, and the common theme links monkeypox to a side effect of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Furthermore, the internationalization capacity of scientific hoaxes is demonstrated. Fact-checking agencies conduct adequate and thorough source verification, predominantly relying on official and expert sources. However, they employ limited digital tools that could expedite the verification process. Disinformation regarding monkeypox is closely related to COVID-19 hoaxes, either by resurrecting conspiracy theories or through the dissemination of speeches by well-known anti-vaccine activists who belong to healthcare collectives and were influential during the health pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Revista Austral de Ciencias Sociales is the property of Facultad de Filosofia y Humanidades, Intituto de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Austral de Chile and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, I extend the analytical framework of infrastructural citizenship with political ecology and reorientate analysis to rural geographies, extractive infrastructure and indigenous territorial movements. Drawing from recent fieldwork in Bolivia, I argue that an extended conceptual framework of 'infrastructural ecological citizenship' better acknowledges the multiple, changing and contested ways that people and rural places co-exist and how these relationships are being reworked as infrastructure and citizenship are co-constituted. I use this framework to analyse a conflict over road building in an indigenous territory and national park in lowland Bolivia – the Isiboro Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure ; TIPNIS), revealing how the road building project weakened the pre-existing political and material infrastructures that underpinned modes of indigenous territorial citizenship within Bolivia's Plurinational State, as well as foregrounding how transnational extractive capital has shaped negotiations of territorial place-based citizenship in the TIPNIS. In doing so, I contribute to debates on infrastructural citizenship, resource extraction and sustainable development, revealing the ongoing potency of place-based claims on land and related claims for territorial citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the imposition of caps on microcredit lending rates through credit policies for productive sectors. This financial inclusion intervention provides a unique quasi-experiment, allowing to estimate its effect following a difference-in-differences analysis. Our results suggest that the imposition of interest rate ceilings negatively affected the portfolio balance of new microcredits and loans to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) granted by Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs). The balance of the microcredit and SME loans portfolio granted by MFIs, relative to the company portfolio granted by banks, decreased by 26.1% for an average MFI for the period 2011-2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]